Against the ardent advice of his lawyers, Lay is coming to Washington tomorrow to tell Congress his version of the energy company’s collapse.

He will testify without immunity from possible prosecution in the courts based on the evidence he gives the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Financial Services Committee.

Friends say the decision to tell all is a last-ditch effort by Lay to clear his name. They say he is intent on salvaging his reputation from the rubble of apparent hidden debts, rigged trades, cooked accounting books and inflated stock prices.

“Ken is devastated,” said Stanford Alexander, chairman of Weingarten Realty in Houston and a close friend. “His integrity was the most important thing he and his family had. No matter how much money you have, it doesn’t mean a lot when you lose that trust.”

Others say Lay was forced to step up to the plate after a bungled tactic that saw his wife dispatched last week to do sympathy-seeking TV interviews.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America”, Linda Lay said her husband never countenanced unethical business practices. Lawyers and accountants, she said, had kept him in the dark about the accounting shenanigans that used paper partnerships and other phony devices to hide nearly $600 million in debt.

Few were convinced, it seems.

“I don’t think there was anything in that company he didn’t have his finger on,” said Bill Schadewald, editor of the Houston Business Journal. “I don’t think anything happened without his knowledge.”

His grilling is expected to be torrid.

Lay heads an intriguing list of witnesses this week.

William Kopper, a former Enron exec who headed up at least two of Enron’s off-the-books partnerships, has been subpoenaed.

Those to be grilled also include Jeff Skilling, the architect who turned Enron into an energy trading powerhouse and Andrew Fastow, the brains behind the accounting that hid massive losses from investors.With Post Wire Services